Favorite Cookbooks
Larousse Gastronomique
Not for the faint-of-heart, this is a monstrous classic I couldn't do without. A Franco-centric culinary encyclopedia peppered with recipes - this volume is a continuous source of information and inspiration.
Cooking by Hand
Aside from everything else that I will say about this Paul Bertolli book, the pasta primer alone makes it worth the purchase. A serious volume enveloped in the spirit that to be a good cook you must commit, reeeeealy commit, to a journey of understanding every aspect of your ingredients. Learn to look at ingredients from different vantage points (Twelve Ways of Looking at a Tomato), understand them at an elemental level (by grinding your own pasta flour, or making your own balsamico), or think about the place of dessert in a menu (Cooking Backward)...a beautiful book on all fronts.
Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook
Fun and funky, this cookbook has a light-hearted spirit. Emerging from one of Canada's favorite restaurant / juice bars it includes a robust range of customer-favorites (primarily vegetarian) - healthy, flavorful, and crowd-pleasing.
Living Cuisine
Interested in raw/living cuisine? Start here. A beautifully written book written by an author with a unique point of view and encyclopedic knowledge ingredients.
Stephan Pyles' Southwestern Vegetarian
Over the past year this is one of the cookbooks I've enjoyed cooking from the most. Many of the recipes are ambitious and time-intensive, but in every case the end result has been amazing, the process - educating, and the breadth of Southwestern ingredients eye-opening and exciting.
Nigel Slater's Appetite
Great writing voice. Hearty, flavorful, filling recipes. I love reading this book as much as I enjoy cooking from it.
SuperFoods Rx
One of the most important books of the past five years. This book explains the huge health benefits of cooking with ingredients that are known to be nutritional powerhouses in simple, accessible terms - beans, tomatoes, oats, tea, walnuts, yogurt, blueberries, and more.
The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
A beautifully written book highlighting recipes from one of San Francisco's most cherished restaurants. I particularly love the salads and risottos in this book. One of my favorite books to give as a gift.
Patricia Wells' Trattoria
A personal favorite for everyday Italian. I love Patricia's recipes because she never throws in an overzealous amount of ingredients -- this helps the clean, vibrant flavors in her recipes ring through to the final dish. She makes an effort to keep instructions simple whenever possible without catering to the lowest common denominator, all qualities that make this book great for beginner and advanced cooks alike.
Chez Panisse Fruit
A book to turn to when you arrive home from the Farmer's Market loaded up with a sack full of perfect plums or small baskets brimming with summer berries. It is the companion book to the also wonderful Chez Panisse Vegetables, and covers Apples to Strawberries - and all fruits alphabetically in-between including papayas, loquats, and persimmons. On top of a battery of great recipes, this book includes essays on selecting, preparing, and choosing between different varietal of fruits.
Wildwood
Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest: One of my favorite regional cookbooks. Lots of recipes utilizing the wonderful bounty of berries, mushrooms, and apples abundant in the Pacific Northwest.
Jamie's Italy
My favorite of all of Jamie's books. We get to ride along with him on a road trip through Italy (to some of my favorite and lesser-known regions i.e. Puglia). Great recipes, inspiring photography, printed on beautiful matte paper.
A Year in my Kitchen
Skye Gyngell's (chef at Petersham Nurseries Cafe) stunner of a book. Skye's recipes are seasonally organized, straight forward and unfussy. I suspect she would find herself at home in many a California kitchen.The photography by Jason Lowe is vibrant and feminine and the pacing of the pages is perfect. The recipes have room to breathe on the page and there is a pleasing flow from word-intensive pages to full page photography, and a nice mix of food shots, ingredient shots, and minutiae / details. A lovely, inspiring book to own.
Moro East
For those of you not familiar with Sam and Sam Clark, they run the much-praised UK restaurant, Moro. A few years back the couple took on an East End swatch of land at the Manor Garden Allotments - this cookbook, their third, tells the story of their experience over the course of a year, through a wide range of inspired recipes.
